After FL Shootout, U.S. Prisons May Check Workers For Guns

By |June 23, 2006

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons may screen employees for personal weapons after a fatal shootout at a Florida prison, USA Today reports. The shootout allegedly began when a guard drew his own weapon as federal agents tried to arrest him. The guard, identified as Ralph Hill, was killed in the shootout that began as agents began to arrest him and five other corrections officers at the Tallahassee Federal Detention Center. They faced charges of having sex with female inmates in exchange for money and banned items. Under prison policy, Hill, 43, was not searched after he reported for work Wednesday even though FBI agents were planning to confront and arrest him.

As recently as 2002, the prison bureau rejected a recommendation by the Justice Department’s inspector general that called for searches of prison staff members to help reduce the flow of drugs and other contraband into such facilities. Then-director Kathleen Hawk Sawyer said the proposal was based on inadequate information and could have caused dissension among prison employees.

The legislation marks a major change for Republicans, who long hve embraced a law-and-order rallying cry. Now many GOP senators argue for rehabilitating more offenders rather than long-time incarceration.

An Arizona doctor argues that the government should have learned from previous federal anti-drug strategies that blanket prohibition doesn’t work. He calls for scrapping attempts to curtail opioids and replacing it with “harm reduction” policies.

Expensive medications for inmates can lead to substandard care and delays in treatment, and that may have lasting—even deadly—consequences for incarcerated individuals, writes a prison health care advocate.

Murder rates in the nation’s 30 largest cities are projected to fall by nearly 6 percent this year according to the latest data, undercutting claims that the nation is experiencing a “crime wave,” says the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

School safety commission proposes ending a federal guideline telling schools not to punish minorities at higher rates. The panel largely sidestepped issues relating to guns, although it favors arming some school personnel.